The use of devices such as smartphones is increasing rapidly. Such devices may be capable of running mobile applications which may provide easy access to information and services that may offered for both residential and business users. Many hundreds of thousands of applications are available to be downloaded from online application stores, or directly from developers' sites. However, these applications are of varying quality. In this regard, many applications may be inefficiently or inexpertly written, and some may even be deliberately malicious. Because of the large numbers involved, the providers of the application stores have found it difficult or impossible to verify the integrity of all the applications on offer. The task of verifying the applications' security has proved particularly onerous. The evaluation of applications may be carried out on the basis of information provided by the author of the application, and by analyzing the application source code, again provided by the author. However, there is no guarantee that the application source code provided by the author corresponds exactly to the application which is being offered for inclusion in the application store, or which is available for download from the developer's site. The author may be motivated to provide misleading or fraudulent information to an application store, which may pass undetected.
European Patent Application EP1892620 and US Patent Application US 2008/046886 describe auditing methods for mobile phone applications which aim to protect the potential user of an application by informing the user of which “permissions” the application requests. This permissions information is made available in the course of the installation of the application, and the user may be offered the choice of refusing some of these permissions and thereby limiting the functional parameters of the application, or blocking the installation of the application entirely. However, such methods rely on the user, or the operating system of the mobile phone, to be equipped with knowledge about which permissions it is advisable to permit the application to request. A further disadvantage of these methods as that the permissions information only becomes available once the user has selected the application for downloading and installation. While the permissions information is useful in evaluating the 15 security of an application, it is not normally possible for users, even with assistance provided by the operating system of the mobile phone, to make an informed decision about the security of the application in question.
Another disadvantage of prior art systems is that a user who is confronted with a malfunction of his or her mobile device cannot easily differentiate between problems with the hardware, the operating system, a single application, or a conflict between applications.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.